Transport of goods is becoming more and more automated. Automatic scanning of products is resulting in information being transferred over world-wide networks. But verifying the product's integrity and authenticity is still often subject to manual steps of physical and/or optical inspection.
Sophisticated fraud, manipulation and counterfeiting of products pose a major challenge to brand owners, logistics organizations and customers, where the integrity of products and shipments are difficult to verify.
Further, there is a subjective part in verifying a product's integrity and authenticity, especially when performed remotely. If a brand owner wants to verify a product's authenticity without having access to the product physically, it has to be a certain level of trust between the parties.
A tamper evident packaging is described in WO 2004/078787, where embedded sensors can detect if the packaging has been tampered with. This conventional approach further describes methods to verify the product's authenticity in a remote scenario. However, this conventional approach is limited to applications where a fixed-sized packaging is used, since the sensors are embedded in the packaging material. In applications where the shipment is not originally packed in the tamper evident packaging and where repacking of the shipment is not feasible or practicable, this solution is of less use.
In some applications, a small label is used to seal a specific part of a product. If the product has been compromised, the seal is broken. Again, such solutions are generally limited to optical inspection only.
Recent developments in the field of Automatic Identification (AutoID) and associated services have created an increasing demand for radio frequency tags, known as RFID tags. By embedding an electronic label onto a product, the product can be identified and optional additional data stored in the label, by radio frequency interrogation. However, problems with such labels generally are that they provide limited level of confidence in terms of product authenticity, as the tags can be interrogated by anyone and the label and its contents can be counterfeited itself. Also, the tags do not provide any tamper evidence. Some solutions have been presented, where an RFID tag is applied in a way, where it is very difficult to remove it without physically destroying the tag, thereby making the tag unreadable. An unreadable tag would require manual inspection, which then in theory would make a tamper event evident. However, when there has been a tamper event it is naturally of interest to understand which identity the tampered shipment has and a system where the identity is destroyed would then require an additional identity backup system.
A different approach is disclosed in patent application WO 02/077939, where a label is prepared with a frangible conductive trace, which is designed to break if the label is damaged or an attempt has been made to remove it. However, finding the right balance between an easily broken circuit and a low risk of false alarms is somewhat difficult. Further, a detection circuit without continuous monitoring can be repaired by an opponent after a tamper event, which leaves the event undetected.
Another problem with the presently known solutions concerns the removal of even very strong and advanced adhesive labels by use of specialized solvents, in liquid- or vapour form. Combined means of heating and/or freezing, the adhesive also affect the strength of the bond and the tack of the adhesive.
It would therefore be desired to have a solution addressing the above mentioned issues and weaknesses to allow an objective verification of a product's integrity and authenticity in a remote scenario, preferably with connection to a unique product identifier. Further desirable would be to make this solution compatible with the evolving RFID infrastructure.